Monologue
by paper.white
Summary: Wedding invitations from ex-fiances are generally considered to be highly flammable. Unfortunately, annoying cousins of ex-fiances don't think so.


**A/N: ****I began writing this about a year ago as a sort of writing exercise, and never had any real intention of posting it up on this site. Even now, I still am a little bit squeamish about doing it. Maybe because it's my first real attempt at a WIP in a long time? Cue nervous laugh. **

**Well, you guys, here we go. Read and, hopefully, enjoy. **

**Disclaimer: Everything recognizable to J.K Rowling belongs to her. _Breakfast of Champions_ is both a registered trademark of General Mills and a book by one Mr. Kurt Vonnegut. Everything else? Mine. **

* * *

**Monologue**

**ONE**

The tiny theatre was a mere box on the corner of the lonely street, easily overlooked and hardly ever frequented. Its heavy red drapes peered blearily out through windows streaked with dust and the otherwise sturdy, pleasing façade of bricks were lined with age and weather. Two fragile-looking, honey-eyed doors leaned upon each other in an exhaustion that wasn't to be borne. Every time they were opened (which was not particularly often), they squeaked loudly in protestation as the very air around them sighed. It was a wistful sigh.

Moreover, it was unheard—an unnecessary waste. For month after month after monotonous month, flyers and posters adorned the poor, rail-thin lamppost standing like a starved picketer at the theatre's heels. Its sad excuse for a light bulb flickered. Dogs peed at its feet, cars smoked at the curb, and the regular neighborhood upstart liked to take out his frustrations upon it, preferably with a crowbar. He would do this until the cranky old woman across the street screamed at him, very eloquently, to _fuck off_.

And fuck off he did, much to the theatre's dismay. The misguided building seemed to believe, in its senility, that the little idiot would eventually come to his senses long enough to notice that—look, now—they had an orchestra! Oh! And a theatre company. Musicals! Plays! All featuring living, breathing people prancing about on a creaky stage in a haze of dusty air and peeling wallpaper and, oh, they _did_ mention that the people were _living_, yes?

It was a shame. The dogs were territorial, the cars had bad engines, and the old woman always screamed. The neighborhood upstart always left and life went on as usual. Three or four disinterested people and one drunk were the usual arrivals at the performances, no one really interesting. But lately, the desperate, hollow-eyed manager had a new light in his eye.

A tradition had blossomed in the course of the past few weeks.

A fresh energy caused the weary, cynical doors to stand just a little straighter, the windows to shine a little brighter, and the dust to settle down. The theatre company, one and all, would look surreptitiously to the wall clock at approximately nine in the morning in anticipation of the small, blue-clad figure that had made the cheap seats her home. Smiles were golden when the doors shrieked through the gloom. Palpable, overwhelming waves of relief and incredible joy flooded the entire company and orchestra at her arrival. She _always _arrived. She was the silent, reassuring witness to their art, a spot of pure sky swallowed up in the very back of the theater and yet was so very much there.

They had this miracle to owe to the neighborhood upstart.

If he hadn't been beating the long-suffering lamppost so intensely that beautiful Sunday afternoon, and, thus, destroying the neighborhood peace, Rose Weasley would have never come out of her apartment. She would have never squinted at the sun.

She most certainly would never have picked up the lost, streaky flyer on the sidewalk and raised her eyes to its home across the street.

o o o o o o

It wasn't the first time that Rose had seen the downtrodden little theatre. In fact, she had passed by it numerous times on trips to the grocery store, to the bookstore and the charming sidewalk café where she whiled away most of her free time flirting with the cute waiter who brought her tea. She couldn't help but pass by it, seeing as how she lived directly across from it for the past two months.

But there really wasn't any valid excuse for why she thought of it so often. After all, no one else cared. The inhabitants of the building, one and all, shared a general apathy for their neighborhood theatre and only a minute interest in the frazzled Christmas tree that was the much-abused lamppost. Whatever leftover fragments of music that seeped through their walls was quickly stamped out by the overloud radio on the third floor. The radio itself was swiftly silenced by whatever foul-mouthed, old Mrs. Pimpernel chose to yell from the first floor.

"Rosie," an abashed Albus had once said, unhelpfully slack-jawed after witnessing an afternoon tirade. "You really couldn't have chosen someplace else to live?"

She had shrugged and continued lugging boxes up the stairs. "She makes people feel safe."

"Jesus." They both winced as a frying pan sailed out of the window to smack a Canary yellow car into yelping hysterically. Dogs barked, the newborn baby on the top floor shrieked, and a blooming dent had made itself comfortable on the car's surface. Mrs. Pimpernel swore at them all. To this, Albus shook his head and repeated, "Jesus."

Rose remembered telling him that Jesus wasn't going to help her that day, or any other day, and advised him to stick to calling on Merlin. She couldn't recall what he'd said back. In her memories, the clearest thing in the world that day was the pitying expression on her cousin's face and the involuntary discomfort in his eye that had become so familiar to her since her non-wedding. Everyone she knew wore it like some sort of holy mantle, even though it was everything but. Their wearing it magnified the black hole at the center of her being until she became almost fearful of looking in the mirror, terrified that she would somehow lose herself in the night. Her knowledge haunted her, tainted her and repulsed her until she couldn't bear it any longer.

So she moved.

Moved, took a leave of absence at the Ministry and became the proud new owner of a Muggle apartment in a town she couldn't for the life of her recall the name of.

She knew a lot of other things, though. She knew that the sky was perpetually covered in clouds like crumpled tissue paper. She knew a few of her neighbors. The Plums lived in a tiny apartment on the top floor with their equally tiny, newborn baby Violet, whose exquisite starfish hands always seemed to be grasping for air. There was the ubiquitous Donny Callum who Rose had only ever seen awake in the evening. To her left was Renee Pennyworth—self-professed coffee addict, American, and owner of the now-dented Canary yellow car. To her right was Peter Latimer, who hated Renee Pennyworth. And last (but definitely not least) was the infamous Mrs. Pimpernel who everyone assumed had lived in the building since the dawn of time.

Rose even knew the street name—Peacock Lane. She _never_ remembered street names. And while there was a sign that declared it from the corner, she had first only noticed it broadcasted in faded brown letters upon the building across the street: Peacock Lane Community Theatre. It was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw at night. Right before she closed her eyes, she saw the two doors shift into the silhouettes of Granddad and Grandmum Weasley, huddled like peas and smiling into the camera from the sofa. Sometimes, she saw Victoire and Teddy cooing over little Dora's shock of green hair.

Her nightmares saw Sebastian smiling in a lovely, moonlit restaurant with a lovely, black-haired girl cocooned at his side. And, unfortunately, Rose had only ever had red hair.

It should have been enough to scar her from contemplating darkening the doors of the theatre, but she did it anyway. Just contemplating. Thinking about doing it one day and never _actually _doing it.

This was what she was up to in her living room, daydreaming with a cup of tea in her hands with the steady business of beating down a lamppost in the background. She only resurfaced as soon as Mrs. Pimpernel began screaming. And that was when she realized that the clang of metal was unusually loud and forceful for the day.

The boy who did it was Ed Wilson. He was a scrawny kid with a scowl permanently scrawled across his features and a warped crowbar attached to his hip like an extra appendage. Or the best friend he never had. Either way, his one defining feature was his feud with Mrs. Pimpernel. No one really knew how or when it started, and speculated it to end when something vaguely apocalyptic came along—like Mrs. Pimpernel having an aneurysm. And this, Rose figured, was unlikely ever to occur.

The clanging went on and on in an impressive act of defiance under the old woman's rain of profanities.

"SOD OFF THE BLOODY CORNER, YOU GODDAMN SON OF A WHORE!"

(The beautiful irony of it was that the kid actually _was_ the son of a whore)

Rose grabbed her favorite coat, quietly shut her door, and tripped down the short flight of steps.

_Clank! Clank!_

"Lousy _piece of_ SHIT!" Mrs. Pimpernel's disembodied voice increased. "WHAT THE HELL DID I TELL YOU TO DO? SOD _OFF!"_

She emerged outside just as the words dwindled into an incomprehensible mix of colorful oaths that James Potter would have simply loved, had he known what they meant. Amid the new volley of words, the scrawny upstart hoisted his crowbar over his shoulder and glanced at the building with his customary scowl. He then kicked the post for good measure and sauntered down the street, whistling a lighthearted tune that the violins had tapped out the day before. Papers fluttered like fallen leaves around the sidewalk to be swept up by the wind.

The flyer under her foot was just the excuse she needed to walk into the wistful little theatre and listen to it again.

o o o o o

In the suffocating, dusty gloom that embraced the depressingly wilted upholstery stood the theatre company, frozen mid-step in a dance number. A rotund man with a glistening pate gaped openly. The shriveled pianist pressed his glasses closer to his white-fringed eyes and coughed as the piano wheezed into silence. Meanwhile, the girl with curling red hair crept tentatively closer under the dim light, tightly enfolding herself in the ill-fitting bright blue coat with every step she took.

Her chin was high, her jaw was set, and her eyes asked silently for a refuge she wasn't aware she wanted. Just as silently, the rotund man recovered himself, nodded to the girl, and waved an incredulous hand at his pianist.

Ringing voices, pounding feet, and tinny music notes followed Rose up the aisle until she reached the very recesses of the theatre. There, she sat. She closed her eyes against the clouds of dust that flew up around her and sighed.

For the next two hours, she listened and forgot.

o o o o o

"Honey," Renee Pennyworth sternly waved a hand, "do you have a lover that you haven't told us about?"

She stood in the doorway of her apartment arrayed in an assortment of clothing that would have set the world against its axis. A ribbon was tied in a large bow against her amber-colored hair, and a ridiculous, bubblegum pink apron surrounded what was otherwise anyone's typical shirt and jeans. In her right hand was Rose's milk carton. In her left hand was a spatula sopped with pancake batter and chocolate chips.

Sheltered in her blue coat from any ideas Renee might have about brandishing the object, Rose laughed weakly. "I promise, if I had a lover, you would have been the first to find out."

"Because I'm just that brilliant, right?"

"Better than Einstein."

"Better than Oscar fucking _Wilde,_" Renee said emphatically. "Honey, hell _yes_!"

An incensed shout echoed from beneath a closed door. With a _moue_ of disgust, Renee flipped it a bird. "It's much too early to argue with moron over here," she explained to Rose.

"Why does he hate you, anyway?"

A shrug. "Million dollar question."

"Tell me when you're rich, then," said Rose. "And say hi to Donny, for me, yeah?"

"Yeah, I…hey!" She turned slightly from the stairwell to see Renee frowning slightly, twirling the spatula between her fingers. "Wait a minute. If you _don't_ have some dashing, debonair lover waiting to sweep you off to some gorgeous tropical island, then where are you going?"

Rose opened her mouth, hesitated, and shut it. Because, like most humans, she had come to a crisis: where precisely was she going?

"The theatre."

"That dilapidated pile of bricks?" Renee looked at her in bemusement. "Honey, promise me one thing, okay?"

"Okay…"

"Don't," she stressed, "die."

With that said, she blew a kiss and retreated into her apartment with a muted _click_. Rose stared after her, letting several seconds pass before finally turning to stumble her way down the narrow steps, always half a step away from physically tumbling down and injuring herself.

The generic whitewashed walls cut away into the wallpapered lobby. Static buzzed through the ceiling. A radio commentator chatted with a celebrity, his wit completely lost as the conversation rolled mercilessly on. The strong scent of cleaning products made Rose's stomach turn. Drawing the coat against her body, she gingerly saw herself out into the drizzling gray day.

o o o o o

Tiny drops of moisture clung stubbornly against the strands of her hair even as the doors squeaked and she was admitted into the solidly dry and dusty theatre air. The company lounged about onstage, faces half-made up and hair wrapped in curlers. A girl stood close to the curtains. Her shadowed eyes suddenly screwed shut as she turned and sneezed into a handkerchief, pinching her nose against the dust that swarmed relentlessly upwards. A pang of understanding, a swell of sympathy came to Rose, because the theatre really was horribly cleaned. Her grandmother would have had multiple strokes at hearing about it.

She peered about as the manager's warm, Scottish burr floated over the efforts of the orchestra. A wide, yawning room spread out before her. A few light bulbs sputtered like captured fireflies along the walls, throwing light on row after row of the dulled wooden seats that sat upon the floor. These seats, with their smooth, darkened faces, were the seeds that simply refused to sprout—much unlike their regularly turned counterparts in the West End and Broadway.

Rose listened to the way her boots beat feebly against the carpet with each step up the aisle. All the while, her head turned in the idle interest of one checking for boiling in a teapot. There was no one there that hadn't been for the last opening. She offered a friendly wave to Anna Plum, who smiled softly back. She patted the head of the old man with the brown bag of liquor and nodded at the widower whose daughter had run off. A few polite words of greeting were handed out to the goateed fiancé of the show's star, and a few polite words were handed back.

"Haven't a clue what she's still doing here," he sniffed. "She deserves better."

Rose kept her mouth shut and moved on. She reached the back of the theatre, picked up her feet.

And froze.

Here, in this lonely theatre, she had lost her ability to breathe and the irony of it was that the show hadn't even started yet. Or maybe it had, if she thought about it. Her life, after all, seemed to have become a complete farce ever since she met the man whose cousin was currently sitting in _her_ seat, an inexplicable expression smashed into his face as he looked at her.

"Rose."

Same white blonde hair, same concrete eyes, same drawling voice. All smothered with that rich-smart-successful aura he carried around with him like a woman with a damn purse. She would have run away if she weren't so shocked.

"Scorpius?" she heard herself say faintly. "As in _Malfoy_?"

Came the reply: "Cheers, love."

"Oh, my God." She recovered herself and released a choked laugh. Her hands covered her mouth in surprise at the sound. Slowly, she removed them and repeated, "Oh, my God."

Rather than responding with the obligatory Malfoy snark, he merely smiled. Half-heartedly. His hands spread out in the air as if in defeat at being discovered and she noticed how his gaze always seemed to slip away. They grabbed at her, and slid. Snatch and slide. Snatch and slide.

The hand at her side almost reached out to steady him when she realized that he hadn't moved a muscle.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, deciding to take the logical route.

"What do you think, Weasley?" He gestured needlessly at the fumbling stage. "Muggle entertainment—it's the new rage in the wizarding world!"

"My granddad's taken over the Ministry, then?"

Scorpius snorted, folding his arms across his chest as Rose sank down into the seat beside him. "Good to know your sense of humor's still intact."

She almost rolled her eyes at his remark and gave a noncommittal hum.

"No words? Thought I'd never see the day when—"

"Albus outed me, didn't he?"

His hesitance was amusing and she slumped back in defeat before his answer even touched the air. "No," he said.

"That's a lie," Rose stated, sitting up.

"Well."

This time, when his gaze began to slip towards the stage, she followed it with the sudden hope that when she looked back, he would be gone. After all, she hadn't _touched_ him yet. Until she did, he could still be comfortably labeled as a 'hallucination' or 'apparition' or maybe even 'delusion'. _His_ presence still didn't make any sense.

Albus, she would have understood.

Her mother, she would have understood.

Sebastian arriving to confess that he had been forced into an arranged marriage with the Girl in the Restaurant and consequently sweeping her (Rose) off her feet, while highly unlikely, still ranked higher than _him_ in Rose's Scale of Rationality.

She concluded that she had asked the wrong question. Whether or not Albus had ratted her out was relative; _why_ Scorpius Malfoy, of all people, had chosen to care was much more interesting—assuming that the blond sitting next to her was solid enough to answer.

The house lights softly dimmed to a bare glow. Violins began to cry just as Rose made a decision to check if he was still next to her. Her eyes squeezed themselves shut. The palms of her hands grew warmer. A tripping noise could be heard in the general direction of her heart as she turned.

Drawling voice.

"Still a weirdo, I see."

A vision of him swam in front of her and a sickening pang hollowed out the pit of her stomach at the familiar expression of bemusement on his face. It was this expression that he frequently greeted her with in Hogwarts. Seeing him wearing it so comfortably was akin to a scream by Mrs. Pimpernel at midnight.

"Why are _you_ here?" she asked wearily, giving up all pretenses. "We're not exactly friends, Scorpius. Merlin," she let out a brittle laugh, "we haven't even got the in-laws excuse to use as a façade anymore. So why did—"

"Just," he interrupted her, stopped, and ran a hand through his hair. He sighed and began again. "Don't throw your boot at me."

The floor gave a drawn out, cautious squeak as she rubbed her right boot against it.

"… Sure."

Beyond them, a light chorus of voices soothed the strings section, supporting the trilling flutes when they bravely took the lead. The curtains shifted slightly. A distinctly metallic _clang_ issued from somewhere beyond the theatre doors, startling the goateed fiancé several rows down.

Scorpius avoided the flat gaze Rose observed him with and muttered darkly under his breath.

"Malfoy, I can't throw my boot at you if I can't even understand what you're on about," she told him impatiently. "Don't tell me you came because you _missed_ me?"

No response.

"Malfoy?"

When he still offered no indication of ever restarting the conversation, she pushed herself to her feet and stood, staring at him for a long moment. His gaze was narrowed and fixed at a point somewhere over Anna Plum's left shoulder and below the piano's right leg. It was only upon closer inspection that she noticed how abnormally _pale_ he was. He'd always been pale, but never to the point where he rivaled the complexion of a vampire.

"You're not a _vampire_, are you?" she burst out unthinkingly.

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he shook his head, "_No_."

"Oh."

"Rose?"

His voice was casual enough to make her sufficiently suspicious, and her mind once more latched onto the vampire theory.

"Yeah, Malfoy?" She mirrored his tone.

And then he looked at her. _Really_, genuinely _looked_ at her.

Malfoy gray and Weasley blue met midair and both pairs of eyes widened as though having just seen each other for the first time. Rose's booted feet might as well have been petrified to the floor. She was so busy marveling at this strange event in this particular pocket of time that she almost missed the next few words he spoke.

This was what Scorpius Malfoy said: "He's sorry."

And Rose, the clever girl, replied with, "Bullshit," and then proceeded to do what she should have done the moment she saw him in her seat.

She ran away.

o o o o o

The balding theatre manager swept a handkerchief over his forehead, puffing out in pride. He had an entire two hours of perfection. His niece's fiancé hadn't barged into the dressing rooms during intermission, the dancer on the left hadn't fainted, and the flautist remembered his cue. And the cellist! He was sober! No one had complained excessively backstage, everything was perfect, and he was swimming in a puddle full of bliss.

He now turned towards the young man beside him with a benevolent smile.

"Well, Mr. Malfoy? What did you think?"

"You'll do."

There was no way the day could have possibly gotten better. Until that. Mentally, the theatre manager felt over the moon, and was about to express his gratitude suitably when the Malfoy heir went on.

"You haven't told her?"

The manager frowned, puzzled, and asked, "Who?"

"The Weasley girl," Scorpius clarified, "you haven't told her you're a squib?"

_Squib_. Flinching slightly at the blunt use of the word, the theatre manager shook his head and gave a slightly ironic smile. No, he hadn't told the little Weasley girl in blue, he subsequently informed the other.

"I believed that she would be happier not knowing," he went on.

"How so?"

The theatre manager shrugged and stuffed his hands in his jacket. "She tried to escape to the Muggle world, didn't she?"

Scorpius seemed to accept this, and turned to see himself out while informing the manager that the deposit would be made that night.

o o o o o

_Sunday, June 4, 2028 _or _One Week Ago:_

_Rose,_

_I know I'm probably the last person you'd want to get an owl from, but here it is. Please don't take it out on the owl; it's not his fault. Obviously. Just—_(an angry, indecipherable scribble)

_I'll stick with business, I suppose. I know you've received the wedding invitation. I also know that you probably haven't read it, and it's okay if you haven't. I understand. If you don't respond within the week, I'll just assume you aren't coming. I didn't mean to offend you; it was just a— request. _

_No, that was bullshit. I'm sorry. _

_But, please, think about coming. _

_Sebastian Nott_

o o o o o

Rose Weasley was a coward.

She was a Gryffindor and a coward and oxymoronic— three factors that made it possible for her to forcibly restrain her foot from stepping into the theatre. For two weeks, she determinedly swept past the theatre to the bookstore, the grocery store, and the café (where she _didn't_ flirt with the waiter anymore). If it was on her route, she stopped by the florist where the Plums worked.

At her apartment, she would read. Sometimes, when he managed to pull himself away from his office work, Peter Latimer would stand in the hallway with her and politely engage himself in an "intelligent debate". That was what he called it, anyway. Latimer was a person whose name was synonymous with _misanthrope_, and could be correctly labeled as a recluse. If the people of the building hadn't known that he had an office job, or that he went to the bookstore every Saturday morning, they would have sympathetically concluded him to be agoraphobic. He even had his groceries ordered to his door. Once, Renee even found a bottle of wine and a rotisserie chicken sitting in the hallway, the receipt tactfully stuck to the end of the paper bag.

"What an asshole," Renee muttered, bursting through Rose's door when it was clear that she wouldn't be stopped. Her coffee sloshed drunkenly in her mug. "You'll never believe what it was for, either. Go on, guess!"

"Promotion?" Rose suggested.

The other girl held her breath. "Latimer has a…_girlfriend_!"

Silence followed the declaration, so completely uncalled for, so utterly inappropriate, that they were both stunned into it. Renee fell into a barstool and kicked off her bunny slippers, numbed for what was possibly the first time in her life. Rose put down her book to stare thoughtfully into space.

After five seconds, she chuckled. The sound surprised them both. "Well," Rose started bemusedly, "that's unexpected. I mean," she looked up skeptically, "did you see her in the flesh? You're sure she isn't just a computer program named after a girl, or something?"

"No, but it was _something_ all right. Shit," Renee hiccupped and shook her head vigorously, "you should have seen her with fucking _six-inch_ _red stilettos_ and boobs the size of Jupiter. God help her if she has children. Then she'd have to ditch the fucking stilettos and hire a chiropractor."

"That sucks."

"You'd have to ask _Sputnik_ that," a snort, "of course."

Renee laughed at the expression that flickered across Rose's face as she struggled to understand. Rose lifted up a hand and shut one eye. "What? Sputnik?"

"It sounds like a bad porno, yeah, I know. Stiletto Girl's Russian…I think. Blonde. Gigantic. Hey…uh," narrowing her eyes, Renee crossed her arms, "you don't think that Latimer's doing something nasty with a video camera next door, do you?"

"No," Rose said instantly. "I think that he's a bit too reserved for that."

Renee rooted around for her slippers with her feet and shot her a sympathetic glance. "Oh, honey," she said, "I think the word you want is _repressed_. And you're right. Although how the hell he's even getting any is beyond me. If that girl's a screamer, Mrs. Pimpernel's going to give us an earful tonight."

o o o o o

It turned out that Stiletto Girl was not a screamer.

She was, however, incredibly vocal in other ways that nobody in the building ever wished to repeat or discuss with each other. Rose could hardly sleep for blushing so furiously every time she heard a telltale thud against her wall that clearly identified the placement of Latimer's bed in his apartment. And when Russian love declarations became too much for midnight to handle, providence arrived in the form of Mrs. Pimpernel shrieking for the immediate annihilation of languages she couldn't understand. It was one in the morning before Rose finally, gratefully sank into rest.

And then the day began all over again.

Like most days, it began with Renee Pennyworth asking for more milk.

Unlike most days, Peter Latimer happened to be leaving his apartment at the exact same time.

The sight of the two of them, side-by-side outside Rose's door, made for a highly comical portrait. Rose almost wished she had her camera with her to show Albus when he visited.

To the left stood Renee in a fuzzy pink robe with a messy ponytail, bunny slippers, and a plain white mug held securely between her hands. At the very edges of her right was Latimer in an immaculate white shirt, designer jeans, and freshly showered black hair.

They wore twin scowls.

When the door swung open, Renee piped up brightly with a, "Sleep alright, Rose?"

"Fine," Rose said, seeing Latimer's dirty look. Renee ignored this.

"I didn't. Want to know why?"

"No, not re—"

"Because _Sputnik_ here," Renee interrupted with a jerk of her coffee cup and a sneer, "spent the whole bloody night in the love fest of a century!"

It was Latimer's turn to twist his expression to disgust. "Listened the whole time, did you, Pennyworth? Jesus, you're lonely."

"Me? Lonely?" Renee laughed harshly. "Fuck you."

"Sorry, I usually don't go for girls who are obviously worth _one cent_."

"Yeah? So how much did you pay last night?"

Rose glanced back and forth uncertainly as red spilled itself across Latimer's face. Clearly, a nerve had been hit. Latimer's hands were shaking as he carefully locked his door and, rather than replying, delivered a perfectly timed two-fingered salute along the corridor.

Renee shouted, "Wanker!"

Then with a tense smile and a tilt of her coffee cup, she turned back to Rose and asked to borrow her milk carton.

It took several seconds for Rose to give her flustered response, pushing the carton through the doorframe. The near-hollow sloshing in the container brought a small, apologetic smile to her lips.

"Sorry, I haven't done my shopping yet," she explained.

"No! No, no, Rose, it's _fine!"_

Renee's smile was too bright, her eyes too narrow, and the grip she held on her coffee mug whitened her knuckles to bone. The carton dented itself in the French-tipped fingers of her left hand. Her amber-colored hair frizzed. With great caution, Rose ventured to ask if she was okay.

Almost instantly, Renee relaxed.

"Rosie, you worry too much," were her parting words before ducking into her own apartment, yelling, "Donny, _coffee_, not vodka!"

o o o o o

_Monday, June 19, 2028_ or _Yesterday_:

_Look here, Weasley. Seeing as how I am in a forgiving mood, I will excuse your rudeness at the theatre. It isn't as if your stellar personality gave you any leeway anyhow. _

_By the way, buy wine—I'm stopping by tomorrow evening. If I find you shagging anyone, I'm telling Albus. _

_- Scorpius_

o o o o o

"God, would you look at that?"

Rose tightened her grip on her grocery bags, simultaneously lifting her eyes from the ground to identify a swaggering, stumbling figure under the streetlights. His feet were clumsy and awkward in their loafers. Arms were held straight out, a caricature of the swans she'd once seen in flight, and his face was tipped reverently to the moon.

A beer bottle slowly choked to death in his left hand.

"Would you look at that?" he shouted again at the sky. "It's… _so_… bloody b-e-a-utiful!"

He continued some more in the same spiel, laughing softly to himself and alternating swigs with swear words. She probably should have done something sooner. Even as his feet became heavier with each time he sucked away at the bottle, she couldn't help but be transfixed with the way this man gave his sanity for the moon. Sanity for the _moon_, a glorified rock in space.

It didn't even glow on its own. The _sun_ had to exist to shine upon it in order for it to do anything at all.

The truth of this statement was only beginning to dawn upon Rose when the man in the street fell down like a line of dominoes. First the bottle crashed. His feet shortly followed, buckling his knees, crumpling his torso, and neatly laying his shoulders upon the ground with a dull _thump_. He groaned and said, with surprising clarity, "Shit."

"Donny?" Rose dropped her groceries, ran forward. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Fifty fucking seven."

It had been a stupid question, anyway, she thought with chagrin, looking at the five fingers she had thrust frantically in his face. "Close enough."

"Who are you? Are you an angel?"

Donny's forehead wrinkled with the concentration of focusing on her face. Rose couldn't begin to imagine what she looked like, but she was sure that 'angel' would not be among the adjectives.

"It's Rose, ah, Rose Weasley. I live on the floor below yours."

"R-o-s-e…" He rolled it around his mouth for so long, she began to wonder if her name tasted of beer. "W-e-a-s-l-e-y."

She nodded patiently. "Yes, we met a month ago when I moved here. I was asking Renee Pennyworth about the bookstore, and you came out of her apartment and told me to read—"

"_Breakfast of Champions_," he finished.

"I can't look at the mirror anymore, by the way," she added in relief. "Leaks, and all."

He offered her a drunken smile. She helped him to stand. Her shoulders protested against the weight he continued to press upon her, but she gamely kept her head up, dragging him slowly to the sidewalk. The moon preened gloatingly in his glassy stare.

Upon reaching the front steps of the building, he stopped and thanked her.

"I'll stay out… a bit more," he said, swaying dangerously as he lowered his frame upon the concrete. "The moon's great tonight, isn't she?"

She thought it looked the same as always, but replied an affirmative anyway.

Donny sighed. "Yeah. Yeah…but, uh, don't tell Renee."

"I won't."

"She'll get jealous. I don't want her to get jealous."

An image flickered through Rose's mind of her neighbor railing at the moon with her batter-covered spatula, and she shook her head in amusement, groceries once more firmly in her grasp.

"Good night, Donny."

"I think I love her, you know."

She paused in the doorway, her lips parted slightly to ask, "Who?"

The question never left her mouth that night. She nodded rather uselessly, knowing Donny wouldn't see or care either way, and let the door gently shut behind her with a soft scraping noise.

Across the hall, the clock sluggishly ticked its way to eight o'clock. Its face stared out, pale and round on the clumsy wallpaper that hung around her in all of its peeling, wrinkling glory. Bleach stung her nostrils, and the sound of a radio singing echoed down the stairs. Tonight, it was jazz. The night before, it had been classical. Something with a lot of cellos that, it seemed to Rose, would have been perfect for a wedding.

Needless to say, she had been greatly relieved when the song ended with Mrs. Pimpernel's eloquent intervention.

The song that played now caused Rose to close her eyes and listen, allowing several more _ticks_ to pass with every chord that thrummed in her ears. Her feet began to move in tentative circles across the linoleum. The beating in her chest ached, but it felt good. It paced itself to the lazy, dragging bass notes, lending her back her feelings and shutting out the rest.

Everybody knew that thoughts were the most dangerous part about feeling.

The second most dangerous part was someone watching it happen.

Before she knew it, Rose found her toes grinding up against the first step from the stairwell. There was clapping from the top. She flinched and, expecting Renee, fixed an automatic smile with her glance.

Fortunately, it wasn't Renee.

(Unfortunately, it wasn't Renee. Or Latimer. Or a Plum.)

She wordlessly hurried up the stairs and passed her audience, hearing his footsteps shadow after her.

o o o o o

"You were dancing."

A key scraped against metal. Clicking.

"How long has it been since you last…?"

"Danced?"

"Yeah. Danced."

Hinges squeaked reluctantly and there was the puff of a sigh being breathed into wood. It gave out one, lost word:

"Forever."

"You didn't have to stop. There was a minute left to the song."

"I'm tired."

"Wait—Weasley?"

Rose inclined her head over her shoulder to fix Scorpius Malfoy with a stare, promising nothing. He wore a dark, worn sweater, slacks, and what seemed to be a misguided determination.

"You," he finally said, pocketing his hands, "didn't read my owl, did you?"

"No."

"I thought not. Can we talk?"

There was the sound of breathing, soft and slow. And then she opened the door wider and flipped on her lights.

o o o o o

Conversation had always been something they had never been good at doing with each other. So it was that when Scorpius entered her apartment, he glanced around, taking in the way the poker-faced walls opened into a kitchen area and living room. Aside from a vibrant vase of tulips, both areas were uncannily spotless and he made sure to tell her so.

"Thank you," she replied and hooked her coat over an unobtrusive coat rack.

He offered to take her groceries. She politely refused. The modest brown bags sat patiently on the counter while she picked through them, ignoring the way her guest fidgeted in the quiet.

Eggs, milk, butter, blackberries, bread, honey, tea, and an assortment of veggies. Out of her pocket slipped a wand, flicking each of the objects to their proper place.

"Ground almonds?"

Scorpius held the bag up in question, and she promptly whisked it away into a cupboard.

"Yes."

"Were you planning on making—?"

"Yes," Rose repeated, nodding at the beginnings of a smile on his face. "I asked Aunt Fleur for her recipe a while back."

"Brilliant. So," the sensitive barstool beside her, still sore from Renee's assault a few days ago, creaked in reproach as he sat down experimentally. "This isn't going to give out, is it?"

She shook her head

"Right," he muttered and promptly descended into silence.

Several replies ripened themselves in Rose's brain, only to be discarded for being too forced or too damn cheerful for the sorry state they were in. She opened her mouth at one point, but by then it seemed that she had run out of things to say as well. Unusual, to say the least. While it was true that _they_ didn't do conversation, they did happen to talk. A lot. Or argue, depending on whose opinion was asked.

After what seemed like eternity, she decided to brave the obvious.

"So, you're back. I'd be impressed if, you know, it weren't so weird. Is it Muggle entertainment again?"

His head turned slightly.

"Rose," he said, "go to the wedding with me."

Shock.

She asked him to repeat it.

He did.

She gaped at him like the trout in her neighborhood market and he worriedly tacked on, "Please?" to the end of his sentence. She didn't hear it; the sound of thousands of neurons snapping in her brain was positively deafening.

Five seconds.

Ten.

_Fifteen_.

"Get out."

"What?"

"_Get out._"

"I'm not—"

"Out, out, out," she chanted, shoving him forcefully off of the barstool and herding him towards the door. "Out, Malfoy, get your pretty little arse off the premises and _get out!_"

Years of Quidditch gave him the advantage of dodging her around the kitchen counter. Eyeing the wand now poised in her fist, he attempted to reason with her.

And Rose? Her blood _boiled_.

"Rose, we're adults. We're here to talk, not push each other out of chairs and into drafty hallways."

"I'm doing it anyway."

"Go to the wedding with me."

"No." The wand wavered. "Ask someone else. Ask Lily, she bloody loves you!"

"But she doesn't care," he stressed pointedly.

"Neither do I," she shot back, gritting her teeth when he chuckled.

"What a lie _that_ is."

Her hands threw themselves in the air in that universal gesture of exasperation, but only he could see the helplessness that had sketched itself into her expression. Like a sign. Or a button that children were wont to push even after their parents had specifically warned them against it.

"Malfoy. _No_. Please… just—no, okay?"

The fear of seeing her own reflection pushed into her brain, settling itself more thoroughly when he stopped moving away from her. From her periphery, she could see his eyes flicker in understanding and she hated him for it. She hated him because, unlike Albus or her dad or her mother, he _knew_. Everything.

Because he'd been the one to watch it happen, that complete, total disintegration of Sebastian Nott and Rose Weasley. Three years down the drain. Gone.

It was a dubious honor, to say the least.

"Go with me," he said again, despite the way she shook her head. "For, I don't know, closure. Throw cake at the bride, throw cake at _him_, break glass and shove it in the cake to satisfy your repressed revenge for all I care, just go."

"No, Malfoy, that's you. _You_ need to go."

"You're invited, too."

She laughed harshly and said, "So what? That doesn't compel me to go, does it? Am I supposed to have some magical desire to show up at my ex-fiancé's wedding just because his mental cousin told me to?"

"You used to be friends," he told her after a pause.

"Yeah." Across the room, dark blue eyes seethed. "Does it matter?"

Did it?

He shrugged. "Maybe it should. Matter, I mean."

Rose showed him exactly what she thought of that by pulling open her door. The radio was still on, wherever it was. After a momentary beat of nothing, he went.

Halfway out, though, he stopped and looked at her.

"You should still read the invitation. Live vicariously and all that."

"I burned mine."

"Figured. Luckily, I came prepared." Unsurprisingly, he pulled one out of his jacket and tried to hand it to her. It ended up on the floor, a square of eggshell white against a dusty, dour blue carpet. He prodded her expectantly, "Well?"

"Okay," said Rose, gingerly bending to pick it up.

"You're not going to read it, are you?"

"Malfoy. Out."

"Technically, I am. Or do you mean out of the building?"

She couldn't deal with it anymore, so she shut the door in his face, listening with satisfaction to the nasty little _click_ that came with the lock twisting into place. A peek through the peephole showed him still standing outside, blurry, but completely indignant. She wondered if he would stand there all night long… and shuddered. The horror of him being discovered by the likes of Renee Pennyworth would make her die of mortification.

What if he was accused of being her nonexistent, "debonair" lover? Malfoy, being Malfoy, would milk it for all that it was worth before Renee's incredible talent for gossip hammered the last nail in her proverbial coffin. So much for Rose Weasley Meets the Muggle World.

So much for—

"TURN THAT RADIO OFF, OR I'LL SHOVE IT UP YOUR LAZY ARSE!"

_Salvation. _

"…And just who the hell are _you?_"

Rose sighed, mentally thanked Mrs. Pimpernel, and savored the hurried footsteps that stumbled over each other to get away. The walls waited with her until they were completely gone and all that was left to occupy her ears were four things.

There was the refrigerator, humming blandly.

Slow, steady breathing.

A heartbeat.

And then, irritatingly enough, the reminder: _You used to be friends._

A quick peek at the calendar that lay somewhere underneath the coffee table would have told her that it was exactly one year and five months since she'd been abandoned at the altar. One year and five months ago, she'd been a freshly ditched bride-to-be. One year and five months later, she had gone back to Being Rose Weasley.

_You used to be friends._

Rose sighed, turning the invitation over and over in her hands.

"What's past is prologue," she murmured with irony. "Says Shakespeare."

Maybe she was crazy, but a fifth sound entered the fray—the sound of a wax seal breaking.

**

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**A/N: This is going to end up as a story in three parts. Most likely. Guys, if you've read, please review :) **

_**Music: **Ode to Divorce by Regina Spektor/ Voice on Tape by Jenny Owen Youngs/ Since I've Been Loving You by Corinne Bailey Rae_


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